Kindergarten Pinball Machines

The kindergarten students are continuing to make progress on the pinball design.  This week they figured out how to make a ball hit a target.  They had to combine both direction and the strength of the force to figure this out.

 Here students are using a tennis ball to figure out how to hit a target.

 Once students figured out how to get the ball to hit the target, they practiced with their box models and then drew their designs in their science notebooks.  The black lines represent the shoe lace, the orange lines represent the rubber band.  They show the intensity of their force by showing the rubber band pulled down a little bit or a lot.  They show the direction of the force by the way the shoelaces are pointing.

 This is our class pinball machine so far.

The literacy coach helped us WRITE about what we figured out.

Sun Hats

Students in this second grade class investigated different materials for softness, absorption, and sturdiness.  Then they designed a hat that would block out the sun and keep them cool on a tropical island.

In Kindergarten the students are making great progress on their pinball machines.  They have figured out how to get the ball to start to move, how to get the ball to go long and short distances and how to get the ball to go left and right.  Here are some pictures of their box models.

Here is our anchor chart so far.  We've recorded what we are investigating, how we investigated and what we figured out.  We're keeping track of all of our new vocabulary terms and how we are working like engineers too.

What makes a river flow?

These 2nd graders were trying to figure out why rivers flow.  They made land models and "made it rain" with spray bottles to investigate.

Pushes and Pulls in Kindergarten

Some kindergarteners are learning about pushes and pulls by designing their own pinball machine!  Here they are reading a book about forces. 

Science Resource Pilot

I spent 2 days working with 22 teachers to examine the three resources that we are piloting.  We dissected them to figure out how aligned they are to the NGSS.

Rube Goldberg

A fourth grade class is trying to figure out how the Rube Goldberg machine works.  I was lucky enough to spend a week in their science class to work with them.